


Chocolat

by ElectraRhodes



Category: Chocolat (2000), Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: #LightsCameraMurder, Abstinence, Chocolat AU, Chocolat Crossover, Chocolate, Easter, Food, Food Porn, Gluttony, Hannigram - Freeform, Lent, Lust, M/M, Magical Realism, Pride, Roman Catholicism, Rural France, Seven Deadly Sins, Sins no doubt also freeform, envy - Freeform, greed - Freeform, sloth - Freeform, wrath - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 13:26:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13502440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectraRhodes/pseuds/ElectraRhodes
Summary: "What does it taste of?" she whispers, looking curiously at the small wafer.The young priest smiles at her."Life.".........................................Oh for goodness sake, this is a Hannibal/Chocolat crossover, seven sinful chapters (plus a beginning and an end), dealing with all kinds of delicious guilty indulgences; borrowing from Catholic theology and liturgy; Hannibal's own special kinds of therapy; gratuitous use of rural France; and well, you get the idea. Expect magical realism, food porn, a befuddled and rather hungry Will Graham, a capricious narrator, and at least one reckoning.





	Chocolat

It begins like so many perfect stories do, not with a ‘once upon a time’, or a, ‘are you sitting comfortably?’ But with a train. Not even in the dead of night. Just a train. The ones with the itchy scratchy sit up and bounce seats. A stuffy compartment and a fusty guard. 

“Billets” he says, “billets”

So of course the little grey cardboard tickets are handed over and he uses a punch to make two little holes and blows through his moustaches as he does so. You can hear his voice as he drifts further down the carriage. All at once a must of felt and cardboard and a great knight guarding a dragon instead of slaying it. Choo choo. Says the train engine. Choo choo. Coming for you. Choo choo.

So, it is a sunny afternoon and there is not even a faint and glorious moon to welcome their arrival. Have you seen chocolat in the moonlight? It looks, well, we’ll see soon enough what it looks like.

Hannibal Lecter, late of someplace else and far enough away he thinks, looks out of the window. Next to him, her head resting against his shoulder, is a small child. A little girl with a stuffed toy in her arms and a leather suitcase on the seat beside her. His own bags rest on the shelf above the seat, mind your head when you get up, be careful now. Under the seat is a box. In the event of something un-towards occurring he has one hand free for the child and one for the box. All done up in string and hope.

The countryside rolls away, first one shape of field and then the next. A small field. Scudding clouds casting their small shadows. The train stops in a small town. He glances down at their tickets. Another hour maybe. The little girls snuffles against his side. A snuffle of tired, and here we are, and oh my. Out on the platform a woman happens to catch his eye and smiles a little, fussing at her daughter and maybe her husband alighting from the train all commuter important and bowler hat, even in this small provincial place. He changes his mind.

“Up my darling girl, up, up.”

Mischa rubs at her eyes. Hugs her toy. Takes her own little suitcase. She is big enough to carry it all by herself thank you so much. And down down down. From the rattle and thrum onto the solid and dust. Hannibal helps her down. She could manage if the steps weren’t quite so deep.

He casts around for a porter or a trolley, instead he catches only the tail end of the others leaving the station. Whipping up the grit with their feet, little shoes dancing in the dirt even when the steps are plodded or stamped, still excited by the pavement and the earth. No station master in sight either. Taking a canny nap perhaps, as soon as the dragon leaves the station they can all go back to an enchanted sleep. No matter. Hannibal is a maker, he is someone who happens, and they have always found a way. A place. Even if only for a little while. He hoists his own two bags and hangs the box on its long string around his neck. He is a little bowed from it. But only somewhat.

Maybe the train is the last excitement of the day in this sleepy place? The disappearing passengers have all, are all, vanished. They take to a cobbled road. There is no one in the small square, no one outside the cafe or boulangerie, no one at the drapers, no one, no one. An empty place. He cocks his head. Listens. Behind all the doors there is something seething he thinks. Something positively writhing. He glances up at the church, all roads, after all, lead to Rome, don't you know? It's a grand affair for such small and somnolent place.

Or maybe not. They both listen for a moment or two.

The only sound of springing life is the church bell. Tolling. Just a single note. Ahh. Repeated. And then again. And then a pause. The Angelus he thinks. A peaceable town then, fond of tranquillity and harmony on the outside, and like all still waters, running deep. With merfolk and monsters and things with arms waiting in the murky depths.

He can just hear singing. Also from the church. Ahh. The kind of place where everyone knows their place. Where there is a scheme of things, a plot, and where those who deviate from it will be gentled back into submission, or quelled. Where there is always someone to remind you. The singing stops, no doubt for some prayers or a reading or some words. From some stern earnest. 

There’s a rustling and a wind picks up across the square. A piece of paper flattens itself against his chest. He peels it off, held against him by the sudden stiff breeze, which zithers away as soon as it began. He reads the flyer and laughs and holds it down for Mischa to see.

“It is about 'the abstinences of Lent.'”

“It is. Do you know what that means?”

She shakes her head so he smiles.

“Business. That’s what it means.”

“Chocolat?” she whispers.

He nods and a slow smile, the smile of all little devils everywhere, spreads across his face. For a moment, just a moment you’d be forgiven for thinking he had a forked tongue.

A small child bowls across the open square almost careening into them. The child stutters and apologises and runs for the church. At the door the boy looks back and frowns and then hastens inside.

Hannibal smiles. Ahh. So the kind of place where if something happens. Something a little un-towards, you may well have learnt to look the other way. You may have learnt just enough to not concern yourself too much. Stick with what you know, and in good times or in bad, famine or in feast you hold fast to what you know. Hold your traditions sacred and your vows. And Hannibal is a man who knows all about promises kept, and broken.

“Shall we?”

He says to the little girl who trusts him now as in all things.

“Yes.” She says. “We shall.”


End file.
